The practice is committed to putting patients at ease wherever possible.

If you wish for a chaperone to be present during an examination, please do not hesitate to ask a clinician or one of our receptionists.

It may not be possible for such a person to be provided immediately and you may have to return for the examination to be carried out at a mutually convenient time.

Trust is important in the relationship between clinician and patient and we would at all times, wish you to feel able to ask for a chaperone. It is the policy of the practice to respect the privacy, dignity, cultural and religious beliefs of our patients.

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, you have a right to know who holds personal information about you. This person or organisation is called the data controller. In the NHS, the data controller is usually your local NHS Trust and your GP surgery. The NHS must keep your personal health information confidential; it is your right.

Please be aware that our staff are bound to the NHS code of confidentiality. Our staff are therefore not permitted to discuss any of our patient’s medical history, including their registration status, without their written consent to do so.

Once we have received their written consent and verified this with the patient, we can then we can provide you with this information. This includes complaining on behalf of a patient, but excludes patients who are unable to act on their own behalf and already have a designated person or carer responsible for their medical care.

We therefore respectfully ask parents and guardians not to request information regarding their relatives, or to complain on their behalf, unless we have their written consent to do so.

The NHS is the UK’s state health service which provides treatment for UK residents. Some services are free, others have to be paid for. The regulations that govern who can and can’t receive treatment are complex and may change.

A person who is regarded as ordinarily resident in the UK is eligible for free treatment by a GP. A person is ‘ordinarily resident’ for this purpose if lawfully living in the UK for a settled purpose as part of the regular order of his or her life for the time being. Anyone coming to live in this country would qualify as ordinarily resident. Overseas visitors to the UK are not regarded as ordinarily resident if they do not meet this description.

The following NHS treatment is available to anyone:

• Treatment in an emergency (but not follow up treatment)
• Treatment of certain communicable diseases
• Compulsory psychiatric treatment

To qualify for other NHS treatments you must meet certain conditions, which are outlined below:

EU nationals

Foreign nations from EU member states have reciprocal arrangements for both dental and medical health care so they can access the full range of NHS services.

Non EU nationals

Foreign nationals from non-EU countries have no automatic right to NHS healthcare (other than those outlined above). Students and visitors who are going to stay in the UK for less than six months would have to be seen as private patients and would have to pay for their treatment. It is therefore essential that you have medical insurance to pay for any private treatment.

If you are not a student registered at a UK university and you’re not going to stay in the UK for between six months and a year, it may be unlikely that you will be able to receive free NHS Treatment.

If you are unsure of entitlement to NHS treatment, or require further information, please ask the reception staff when you register, and they will advise you accordingly.

Be aware that a valid six month visa does not automatically confer the right to free NHS treatment.

Please note that registering with a GP does not give you automatic entitlement to access free NHS hospital treatment. It is therefore essential that you take out medical insurance for the duration of your visit prior to arrival in the UK.

If you are a student registered at a UK university (and you have documentary proof of this) and are going to stay in the UK for more than six months, you will qualify for NHS treatment from the beginning of your stay and you (and your dependants) will be entitled to NHS treatment and you may register with a GP.

Medical emergencies

If you need immediate medical assistance (e.g. because of an accident) phone 999 – the call is free. An operator will ask you which emergency service you require (fire, police or ambulance). You will need to tell the emergency services what has happened and where you are. If someone is injured and needs to go to hospital, an ambulance will arrive and take them to the nearest hospital with an emergency department

If you need urgent treatment but are well enough to travel, please make your own way to the nearest A&E department.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides public access to information held by public authorities.

For more information, please review the Information Commissioner’s Office guide on the Freedom of Information Act.

All GP practices are required to declare the mean earnings (e.g. average pay) for GPs working to deliver NHS services to patients at each practice.

The average pay for GPs working in Kirkley Mill Surgery in the last financial year was £90,031 before tax and national insurance. This is for 1 full time GP, 9 part time GPs and 3 locum GP who worked in the practice for more than six months.

However, it should be noted that the prescribed method for calculating earnings is potentially misleading because it takes no account of how much time doctors spend working in the practice and should not be used to form any judgement about GP earnings, nor to make any comparison with any other practice.

There are many services available in Lowestoft to help you to stay healthy. Some of these services can be accessed directly, and for others you need to be registered with a GP practice.

• When you wish to consult a GP about your medical condition, you will need to contact the surgery with which you are registered to arrange to be seen. If you go along to the surgery and do not have an appointment, you may not be seen. The practice may ask you to come back at another time, or may suggest that you are seen by another health care professional or other service.
• When you see your GP about a medical condition, she or he may arrange for further tests to be carried out. If so, they will explain the arrangements for these tests and how you will get the results. These tests may be carried out within the practice or elsewhere.
• If your GP thinks that you need to be seen by a specialist doctor or other health care professional, she or he will refer you. You cannot make an appointment to see an NHS specialist without being referred by your GP.
• If you need a medicine, your GP will give you a prescription which you will need to take to a pharmacy, which will supply the medicine for you.
• If you have a preference for either a male or a female GP please check with the practice before you register, as some practices may have only male or only female doctors.
• An interpreting service is available and the practice can arrange for an interpreter who may work either face-to-face or by phone.
• If you need to use the interpreting service please ensure you ask to arrange this when requesting an appointment.
• If someone else is contacting the practice on your behalf, please remind them to ask the receptionist to book an interpreter.

Help your practice to help you

• Practices can be busy places and staff try hard to accommodate their patients – in return you are asked to behave in a polite and considerate manner. And there are some things that you can do that help the practice to keep surgeries running smoothly, so that people are seen at the right time.
• When you have an appointment please attend at the time stated, and if you are not able to attend please let the practice know in advance, so that the appointment can be used by someone else who needs it.
• If you do not attend appointments, the practice may de-register you. This means that you would stop being a patient of that practice and would no longer be seen by them.
• If more than one member of your family needs to see the doctor or other health care professional, please request one appointment per patient.
• If you have to discuss a complex medical issue please let the receptionist know so a suitable length of appointment can be arranged.
• Please notify the practice if you change your address and/or phone or mobile phone number.

What other help is available

• If you have a cough or cold, or if your child has a minor ailment, your pharmacist may be able to help you.
• If you have an eye problem, you should go to an optometrist.
• If you have a dental problem, you should go to a dentist.
• If you need to see a specialist, your GP will refer you.
• If you become unwell when the surgery is closed, please dial 111 which is a 24 hour emergency cover provided by the NHS.

Each patient has a ‘named accountable GP’ on their clinical record. If you do not already know who your named GP is, please ask reception. We aim for you to see your named GP but this may not always be possible and you may be offered an appointment with a different clinician.

As a practice, we wanted to make you aware that we have stopped providing full online access to patient records.

The current contractual requirement of GP practices is to provide detailed coded online access for patients, the 2020/2021 GP contract does add in a requirement to provide full online access to patients on the condition that appropriate redaction software is available, unfortunately, due to the pandemic, national work on the redaction software has been pushed back and so there is no appropriate redaction software available.

Our Data Protection Officer has been working in the background to raise concerns over a conflict between adhering to data protection legislation and complying with full online access requests.

This is because full online access is a type of subject access request. There is a legal obligation on GP Practices to ensure that the exemptions set out in law are adhered to. For example, third party, serious harm, and child abuse exemptions. Determining whether an exemption applies requires specialist knowledge and training, currently, when a request is submitted, dedicated staff have time to go through the record to confirm whether an exemption applies, this can include requiring input from DPO, and third-party health or social care organisations involved in patient care.

Due to the current pandemic, the practice does not have the resources to provide this specialist training to all staff and support them to be able to navigate complex exemptions for every patient upload in a timely manner. Therefore, in line with guidance from our DPO we are pausing full online records access.

The practice is happy to provide you with a copy of your records through the usual request route when you need them, and we can provide you with detailed coded access should you not already have this.

If you would like to register as a new patient, please use our online new patient registration form.

Anybody in England, whether a resident or overseas visitor, may access primary care services at a GP practice without charge.

Homeless patients are entitled to register with a GP using a temporary address, which may be a friends address or a day centre. The practice address may also be used to register but we will need up to date contact details.

No documents are required to register with a GP, however sometimes we will contact you for further information to confirm your registration.

We request that all new patients should present two forms of identification if you have these. This helps to reduce and prevent fraudulent attempts to obtain or misuse NHS care. Overseas visitors may be asked for additional information to prove NHS entitlement.

If presenting identification, one form should ideally be photographic such as:

• Passport
• Drivers licence
• Official ID card from public services body
• Student matriculation card (current year)

Other documents for prove of residency that are acceptable are:

• Recent utility bill (within last 3 months)
• Council tax document
• Television licence
• Payslips (last two months)
• Rent book/agreement (Public Body or Private Landlord)
• Bank statement (Name and address section only required)
• Solicitors letter- (Clearly showing name and address)

If unable to provide photographic evidence then you can present one of the above and one of the following:

• Birth certificate
• Marriage certificate
• Divorce/annulment papers

The practice will not tolerate violent or abusive behaviour.

Anyone verbally abusing either a member of staff or the public, or using inappropriate language, will be asked to leave the premises and requested to find another GP.

Anyone who is violent or causes damage will be removed from the list immediately.

Removal from list circumstances

• Violence and aggression towards staff or members of the public
• Damage to practice property or equipment
• Change of residence to outside of the practice area
• Persistent misuse of the system
• Patients who the doctors are unable to manage clinically e.g. breach of contract with doctor regarding use of prescribed medicine or break down in patient communication

For patients who are disruptive and display aggressive and/or intimidating behaviour and refuse to leave the premises, staff are instructed to dial 999 for police assistance. Charges may then be brought against these individuals.